“Which is more insidious, the enemy that you recognize or the enemy that appears to be your friend? Which is more dangerous, a rag-tag bunch of poorly-funded White Supremacists or a well-organized, massively-funded, ‘civil rights’ organization which demonizes Christian conservatives? And which lie is more likely to spread, one that is false from beginning to end or one that mixes with falsehood with truth?

“Based on the obvious answers to these questions, it is the Southern Poverty Law Center, the SPLC, that is most insidious and dangerous, and it is the lies of the SPLC that are more likely to spread. The SPLC even has blood on its hands, and by its own definition, should be listed is [sic] a hate group.”

Brown then illustrates his assessment by referring to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune that regurgitates the SPLC claim that there were eight “hate groups” in San Diego’s backyard. Two of the eight are conservative Christian organizations, including a pro-family Catholic organization. These two organizations make the SPLC “hate” list because they are “anti-LGBT.”

Anyone who is pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-Constitution, pro-lawful immigration, pro-Second Amendment, pro-U.S. sovereignty, or who believes that men and women should not share the same public bathrooms, etc., is likely to find themselves on the SPLC’s “hate” list at one time or another–especially if they are Christians.

Until recently, the FBI and other federal police agencies used and disseminated SPLC propaganda to State and local police agencies via their Fusion Centers across the country. After copious protests from innocent people who have been victimized by the SPLC–and after overwhelming evidence showing the untruthfulness and bigotry of SPLC reports–the FBI has stopped using them as a resource.

This author has been victimized by the nefarious SPLC more than once. When I was still in Florida, a deputy sheriff showed me the computer screen in his squad car that listed me and my friend, Dr. Greg Dixon (who was speaking at my church at the time), as being on a police “watch” list due to the SPLC placing us on one of their “hate” lists. After I moved to Montana in 2010, another deputy sheriff showed me a memo that had been released by a local police lieutenant to police personnel in the area again placing me on a “watch” list. Once more, this information had come from DHS via its Fusion Centers courtesy of the SPLC.

Also in 2010, the SPLC released a list of the most “anti-government” figures of the “radical right.” Guess who was at the top of the list? Right. Yours truly. Then, again, I was the target of another featured attack by the SPLC in 2011 soon after we started Liberty Fellowship. I was called an “extremist” and again lumped in with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the like.

Local media throughout the country ran with those SPLC lists and stories, and I have lived under the shadow of this slander and these false accusations ever since. There is no telling how many newspapers and television broadcasts around the country have labeled me as an “anti-government extremist,” “racist,” “white supremacist,” “hate-monger,” etc., by lazy and biased reporters relying only on the propaganda from the SPLC.

In fact, in 2009, the Missouri State Police had already issued a MIAC report statewide that used an SPLC/DHS Fusion Center report to warn Missouri law enforcement officers to watch out for vehicles that had bumper stickers of Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and me–that such drivers should be suspected of being “anti-government extremists.”

Ron, Bob, and I quickly wrote a strongly worded letter of protest to the State of Missouri, and thousands of people across the country likewise sent letters, emails, and phone calls to the State demanding they recant their slanderous accusations against us. The State of Missouri never recanted, but it did take down the report and “reassigned” the man who headed the agency that disseminated the report.

But that just shows you how much influence federal, State, and local police agencies–as well as national and local media–have given the propagandist SPLC. There have been scores, if not hundreds, of local newspapers and other media outlets that have regurgitated these SPLC slanders. The most recent one that I know of happened just last week in Boise, Idaho.

In regurgitating the accusations from the SPLC, the Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise ran a story entitled, “Why is a church on list of Idaho hate groups with KKK, neo-Nazis?” The focus of the story was on a pastor friend of mine, Warren Campbell, who pastors Lordship Church in Couer d’Alene. Obviously, Lordship Church is on the list because the SPLC is in the business of slandering pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-traditional family, pro-Constitution, Christian leaders. That’s why.

But in the middle of the article, the reporter (who never bothered to contact me before he wrote his lazy, unprofessional, and slanderous story), Sven Berg, said, “The group also keeps an online profile of Chuck Baldwin, a Moral Majority figure in the 1980s and the Constitution Party’s 2008 nominee for president, who now lives in Montana and runs the unincorporated church movement that Lordship follows. The SPLC claims that Baldwin’s congregants include neo-Nazis.”

Since that Idaho Statesman article was initially published on August 19, so many outraged people contacted the newspaper in protest of its slander against me that it added this at the top of the online version: “Editor’s note: Since this article was first posted, Liberty Fellowship of Kalispell, Mont., has posted a rebuttal of the SPLC’s allegation that neo-Nazis attend its church, stating that 20 percent of its congregation consists of minorities.” And they also added this to the paragraph saying that Liberty Fellowship includes neo-Nazis: “Baldwin’s Montana church, Liberty Fellowship, has a post saying about 20 percent of its congregation is comprised of minorities and rebutting any suggestion of racism.”

Again, these two comments were added AFTER the initial article was published and AFTER the damage was done and AFTER so many people protested–and I hope KEEP protesting–this slanderous article. The media think they can just print this junk and get by with it, because they usually do. It’s time people let them know that they will not tolerate this kind of yellow journalism any longer.

The only part of our above webpage that was added after the Idaho Statesman report is the personal letter that I wrote to the newspaper in response to their hatchet job. If the reporter had taken the time to check the facts for himself, he would have seen the photo of the many people in the congregation of Liberty Fellowship from minority races and the personal testimony of a young black man who has served with me in the ministry both in Florida and now in Montana. I’ve known this man since he was one or two years old (he’s now in his 30’s). My wife taught him in her pre-school Sunday School class. He grew up under my ministry. He even served on my ministerial staff in the church in Florida. But typical of mainstream newspapers, no one bothered to do their due diligence to contact me to check for accuracy before publishing the SPLC slur, or they would have known that there are no neo-Nazis or white supremacists attending Liberty Fellowship. The reporter simply took the SPLC accusation at face value. This is not journalism; this is pure propaganda–and an unabashed attempt to blanket us with public shame by associating my fellowship and me with neo-Nazis. The reporter didn’t care if the accusation was true or not; he just wanted to use the SPLC accusation to make all of us at Liberty Fellowship look like a bunch of white supremacists. This is “fake news” at its ugliest.

Once again, the Idaho Statesman newspaper was not interested in truth; they were only interested in regurgitating the propaganda put out by the SPLC.

If you would like to voice your opinion of the Idaho Statesman report that recklessly parroted the SPLC’s slanderous accusation that neo-Nazis attend Liberty Fellowship and by implication that we are white supremacists, here is the contact information for the newspaper:

In spite of the SPLC being a multi-million dollar enterprise–financed by ultra-liberal actors, entertainers, and corporations–people are finally starting to awaken to the sheer hate and propaganda emanating from this “non-profit” Montgomery, Alabama, business.

As already noted, federal police agencies have stopped using the SPLC as a resource. In addition, there are currently two active lawsuits against the SPLC that I know about. One lawsuit is from the conservative Christian D. James Kennedy Ministries (DJKM). See the report here:

“The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has long listed Christian organizations and activists for reform in the Muslim world along with racists like the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC’s ‘hate group’ lists and ‘hate map’ have unfairly targeted mainstream conservatives, and even some liberals. Now, some of the groups slandered by this organization have begun to fight back–and it’s not just Christian groups like D. James Kennedy Ministries and Liberty Counsel.

“‘The SPLC, who made their money suing the KKK, were set up to defend people like me, but now they’ve become the monster that they claimed they wanted to defeat,’ Maajid Nawaz, a British politician and founder of the anti-Islamist organization the Quilliam foundation, declared in a video announcing his lawsuit against the SPLC for defamation.

“‘They have named me, alongside Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on a list of “Anti-Muslim Extremists,”’ Nawaz said. ‘I am suing the SPLC for defamation and I need your help to win.’”

I would urge Maajid Nawaz and the folks at DJKM to make this a class action lawsuit, as there are literally hundreds and hundreds of people who have been defamed, libeled, and slandered by the SPLC–and the SPLC has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal, so any lawsuit against them is going to be very expensive. The vast amount of money the SPLC has in its coffers and the fact that the mainstream media (such as the Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise) constantly give credence and cover for this evil organization is the reason why this propaganda machine has been able to stay in business for so long.

Michael Brown nailed it when he said, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is probably the most dangerous hate group in America.” So, what does that make their partners in the mainstream media such as the Idaho Statesman?

P.S. Again, if you would like to express your opinion to the Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise, here is their contact information:

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